Federal court upholds expungement of Hillsboro man's murder conviction
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"A split federal appeals court upheld the expungement of a former death row inmate - a Hillsboro native - in a rape and murder case that led to Kentucky's first death sentence after states resumed executing inmates in 1976," according to a report from The Associated Press.
The April 29 2-1 decision "wipes away the arrest, conviction and sentence of 63-year-old Eugene Williams Gall Jr. in the 1978 kidnapping, rape and death of 12-year-old Lisa Jansen. Jansen's death and Gall's trial sent shivers through northern Kentucky and southern Ohio. The decision upholds a 2008 decision by U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves and means the conviction for Jansen's slaying cannot be held against Gall, once he's parole eligible in Ohio in about a decade. In 2001, a federal appeals court overturned Gall's conviction and death sentence in Kentucky, saying prosecutors failed to prove key elements of the case. The appeals court also said a prohibition against double jeopardy forbade a retrial," The Associated Press reported.
According to a 2001 report from The Advocate, "Gall has been incarcerated at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville since his 1978 conviction. Eugene has been brain damaged since his youth. He experienced grand mal seizures before his 20th birthday. He was sexually abused as a child. At age 22, he was declared incompetent to stand trial on Ohio charges. He spent 2 years in an Ohio mental hospital before being found competent to be tried. Thereafter, he spent 5 years in an Ohio prison before being released on parole in 1977. A year later, Eugene Gall, Jr. was arrested and charged with the murder of 12 year old Lisa Jansen. The evidence at his trial of his severe mental and emotional illnesses was enormous. Gall was diagnosed in 1978 by a psychologist and a psychiatrist as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the most severe mental illness. Both mental health experts testified that Mr. Gall was insane when he killed Lisa Jansen.
"The state has never presented any evidence that Gall was not mentally ill, not emotionally disturbed, not brain damaged. In fact, the Commonwealth’s psychiatrist who very briefly examined Gall shortly after the crime, later agreed in 1989 that Mr. Gall was mentally ill. In 1991, a neurologist and a neuropsychologist examined Mr. Gall and found that he was brain damaged at the time he killed Lisa Jansen. The brief filed in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Eugene raises 15 fundamental constitutional errors. These key errors were considered for the first time by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 3, 1999.
"In 2001, a federal appeals court overturned Gall's conviction and death sentence in Kentucky, saying prosecutors failed to prove key elements of the case. The appeals court also said a prohibition against double jeopardy forbade a retrial," according to The Associated Press. "Rather than have Gall involuntarily and indefinitely committed in a civil proceeding, Kentucky turned Gall over to Ohio in 2001 to serve a life sentence for rape and murder in multiple other attacks on young girls, including one murder, in four counties in the southern part of Ohio."
A jury in Ohio convicted him in 1979. He is serving his sentence at Lebanon Correctional Institute in Lebanon, Ohio. He is parole eligible in 2021.
"A split federal appeals court upheld the expungement of a former death row inmate - a Hillsboro native - in a rape and murder case that led to Kentucky's first death sentence after states resumed executing inmates in 1976," according to a report from The Associated Press.
The April 29 2-1 decision "wipes away the arrest, conviction and sentence of 63-year-old Eugene Williams Gall Jr. in the 1978 kidnapping, rape and death of 12-year-old Lisa Jansen. Jansen's death and Gall's trial sent shivers through northern Kentucky and southern Ohio. The decision upholds a 2008 decision by U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves and means the conviction for Jansen's slaying cannot be held against Gall, once he's parole eligible in Ohio in about a decade. In 2001, a federal appeals court overturned Gall's conviction and death sentence in Kentucky, saying prosecutors failed to prove key elements of the case. The appeals court also said a prohibition against double jeopardy forbade a retrial," The Associated Press reported.
According to a 2001 report from The Advocate, "Gall has been incarcerated at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville since his 1978 conviction. Eugene has been brain damaged since his youth. He experienced grand mal seizures before his 20th birthday. He was sexually abused as a child. At age 22, he was declared incompetent to stand trial on Ohio charges. He spent 2 years in an Ohio mental hospital before being found competent to be tried. Thereafter, he spent 5 years in an Ohio prison before being released on parole in 1977. A year later, Eugene Gall, Jr. was arrested and charged with the murder of 12 year old Lisa Jansen. The evidence at his trial of his severe mental and emotional illnesses was enormous. Gall was diagnosed in 1978 by a psychologist and a psychiatrist as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the most severe mental illness. Both mental health experts testified that Mr. Gall was insane when he killed Lisa Jansen.
"The state has never presented any evidence that Gall was not mentally ill, not emotionally disturbed, not brain damaged. In fact, the Commonwealth’s psychiatrist who very briefly examined Gall shortly after the crime, later agreed in 1989 that Mr. Gall was mentally ill. In 1991, a neurologist and a neuropsychologist examined Mr. Gall and found that he was brain damaged at the time he killed Lisa Jansen. The brief filed in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Eugene raises 15 fundamental constitutional errors. These key errors were considered for the first time by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 3, 1999.
"In 2001, a federal appeals court overturned Gall's conviction and death sentence in Kentucky, saying prosecutors failed to prove key elements of the case. The appeals court also said a prohibition against double jeopardy forbade a retrial," according to The Associated Press. "Rather than have Gall involuntarily and indefinitely committed in a civil proceeding, Kentucky turned Gall over to Ohio in 2001 to serve a life sentence for rape and murder in multiple other attacks on young girls, including one murder, in four counties in the southern part of Ohio."
A jury in Ohio convicted him in 1979. He is serving his sentence at Lebanon Correctional Institute in Lebanon, Ohio. He is parole eligible in 2021.